When Deliverance Doesn’t Happen

Number three, wrong motives. All right. The Scripture I’ll give you there is James 4:3, which says

“You ask and you receive not because you ask amiss that you may spend it on your lusts.”

We are not delivered just to get off the hook, you understand? A lot of people would like to get off the hook. We’re delivered in order to serve the Lord. People who come merely to get off the hook do not qualify for deliverance.

Number four, [you better go down this list and check yourself while we’re going through it] selfcenteredness. Desire for attention. Some people don’t get delivered because they wouldn’t be the center of attention any longer, you understand? You find some of the chronic cases of deliverance never want to get delivered because they’re poor, neglected, rejected people, this is the only time they get the center of the stage. One thing you’ll notice about all people affected by demons is in some way or other they are selfcentered. In fact, selfcenteredness is an invitation to demon attention. Sometimes you just have to let the person go and say, “Listen, you’ve heard enough. You can do it for yourself and if you don’t do it for yourself, nobody else is going to do it for you.”

Number five, failure to break with the occult, etc. And that includes getting rid of occult objects. Okay? Such as little Buddhas or charms, or horseshoes, anything that savors of superstition is demonic. Moses told Israel if you bring an accursed thing into your house, you become accursed like the thing. Most Christians need to go through their homes and clean out a lot of rubbish. I make it a principle, I don’t want to keep in my house anything that dishonors Jesus Christ or honors Satan.

One of the big steps in my life was I had inherited from my grandfather four beautiful tapestry Chinese dragons. Imperial dragons with five claws, not four. And they were beautiful. And they were not actually objects of worship, but the more I thought about it, the more I thought the dragon really is a picture of Satan, I cannot afford to advertise him on the walls of my home. So I took them down and got rid of them and I would have to say without any conscious effort on my part, my income doubled from the day I did that. That’s a little extra motivation! Okay? I was not planning it, I wasn’t in need, I didn’t have any such motivation in mind but I just observed. I prospered in a totally new measure once I got the dragons out of my house.

All right. Number six, failure to sever evil, soulish relationships. Sometimes you have to break some relationships if they’re evil, if they’re binding, if they’re—I don’t know what word, I want to say the word gooey. A kind of sloppy sentimentality that isn’t honest.

All right. Number seven, under a curse. Now we’re going to deal with that tonight so I’m not going to get involved in it now. But some people are under a curse and will not be delivered or healed till the curse is broken.

Number eight, failure to confess a specific sin, such as — the one obvious example is abortion. Anyone who has procured an abortion deliberately, in God’s sight, is guilty of murder. And that has to be confessed specifically as murder. Now this isn’t my decision, I’m not making the rules, you understand? I’m just interpreting them. I tried to get people delivered, you could get the demon up as far as the throat and it would not come out. Stop and check. I remember a girl of about sixteen, her mother had brought her. Eventually I said, “Listen, there’s something you’re going to have to confess before this will come out.” And she eventually confessed she had an abortion, her mother didn’t know about it. The moment she confessed, it came out. And it was so sweet to see the mother and daughter fall in one another’s arms and receive one another. But that, in my opinion, is a unvarying principle.

Number nine which is, this is a controversial one, not separated by guess what? What’s the separating ordinance in the New Testament? Baptism, that’s right. Water baptism. Remember, Israel were delivered in Egypt by the blood of the lamb. But they were separated from Egypt by the water of the Red Sea. And it was the water that prevented the Egyptians following them. They could follow as far as the water. People that are not willing to be water baptized, in my opinion, do not qualify to stay free. This is not an option. I’m not dealing with this as a denominational issue, I’m simply stating that’s the way it is. If you can get God to agree, fine. But I’m not going to be a party to that agreement.

All right. Ten, now this is a very complicated one. Part of a larger battle requiring corporate action. Okay? Some people are what I call “Satan’s battlefields.” And he will not let them go, not because of what they are themselves, but because of what they stand for. I don’t have time to go into this. But there are people for whom the whole body has to take responsibility. To give you an example, there was a young man I knew who had Hodgkin’s disease. You know it’s incurable, it’s just a question of time. Well, he was part of a fellowship which, when the fellowship flourished he did fine, he wasn’t sick. If anything went wrong with the fellowship spiritually, he began to get sick. And ultimately Satan got right into the fellowship, split it open and destroyed it, and he died. You understand? His physical condition was an accurate barometer of the spiritual condition of the fellowship he was in. There are people like that. You don’t have the choice.

All right. One last topic, how to keep your deliverance. Okay. I usually don’t have time to teach on this. Let me say that I have a series of six cassettes called “Deliverance and Demonology” which are available to all of you. This final cassette is “Seven Ways to Keep Your Deliverance.” So if I don’t cover it in detail—anyhow.

Number one, make Jesus Lord. Okay? Normally at the end of a deliverance service I’ll tell the people that have been delivered, don’t you go out of this auditorium until you’ve made Jesus Lord of every area of your life. Remember what Jesus said in Matthew 12 when the unclean spirit goes out of a man? He walks through dry places seeking rest. Then he says, I will return to my house. What does he mean by “my house”? The person he occupied. And when he comes he finds it three things: empty, swept and set in order. What’s the problem? No problem with having the house swept, no problem with having the house set in order. What’s the problem then? Empty. Unoccupied, no one else has been allowed to move in. There’s only one person strong enough to keep the devil out of your life. You know who that is? Jesus. Every area Jesus occupies is safe. But any area where he is not Lord is unsafe.